How Brexit and the far-right will turn Britain into a fire sale opportunity for elite corporate interests
President Donald Trump’s recent visit to the UK was met by some of the biggest protests for well over a decade with nearly 250,000 people hitting the streets of London, more than did for Trump’s own inauguration. Protests like this are important, bringing together the community, creating solidarity, raising the level of debate on important issues such as racism, misogyny and immigration and also acting as a check against injustices becoming socially acceptable.
Since being in office Trump has represented a terrifically effective distraction, his outbursts, contradictory statements and erratic decisions have rarely been out of the media, sowing confusion and revulsion in equal measure. Meanwhile, US taxes have been lowered, regulations dismantled, environmental protections removed, workers rights trampled, all to enrich his real constituency, the wealthy elite.
This distraction has been packaged in the fear of the ‘other’, mostly immigrants, and by utilising the power of the far-right, its proven an effective method. In an interview with The Sun, Trump said Europe is “losing its culture” because of immigration, and that this is a “very negative thing”, aside from just helping France win the World Cup that is.
Trump attacks the EU as, being a block of consolidated power, it poses a threat to America’s business interests, with its tighter laws and regulations as well as not being afraid to take on powerful American multinationals. That’s why Trump described the block as one of his country’s “greatest foes” and advised British prime minister, Theresa May, to sue the EU rather than negotiate with it over Brexit. America has far more in common with the oligarchical Russian kleptocracy than it does with the bureaucratic EU.
This means there will be no good deal for the British people when it comes to America. Trump, no doubt sees the chaos of Brexit as a golden business opportunity, ready to exploit the UK in its weakened state and diminish the EU’s power. He has exported the same tools of social division and fear, divide and conquer, supported by UK parliamentary hard-Brexiters and amplified by the billionaire owned British right-wing media.
The plan is already underway as Trump’s US ambassador, Sam Brownback, is reported to have lobbied on behalf of the jailed far-right activist Tommy Robinson, threatening to publicly criticise the UK government’s handling of the case after receiving pressure to do so from far-right news organisation Breitbart. It also just so happens that former executive chairman of Breitbart, Steve Bannon, was in the UK at the same time as Trump and was handed a platform on LBC Radio to incite for war on the streets of Britain and stated that Robinson was the “backbone of Britain”. The day after the Trump protests, a Pro-Tommy event was held following which supporters of Trump and Robinson — according to anti-fascism campaigners Hope Not Hate — violently attacked a group of trade unionists that included RMT Trade Unionist leader, Steve Hedley, who had spoken out against Robinson at a counter-demo.
UK Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade, Liam Fox, has said that Britain will have “a great deal of freedom” to trade with the US following Brexit and that “very positive” discussions had taken place with US officials on a future deal. One example of such deal apparently includes the trampling of human rights of disabled people, impacting the estimated 20 per cent or so of Britons who have a disability and providing an insight into what the future holds for the British people. What works for Trump’s America will work for Britain too.
The right-wing corporate elite and the far-right have much in common. They only care for democracy, sovereignty and the rule of law when it suits their agenda, ultimately eroding them for the rest of us. The UK government is currently in a state of complete chaos, its democratic mechanisms becoming an after thought in the scramble for salvaging any kind of post-Brexit deal that is increasingly looking to be at the expense of the British people.
Like in 1930s Germany, there will be those who merely act as spectators to the growing threat of the far-right and the decline of our democracy, refusing to acknowledge the reality of the situation until it is too late. They represent sand in the gears of resistance. For those of us on the left, we must recognise and educate others that racism, “othering” and immigration will be used to divide and ultimately exploit us. As oil executives and shareholders have demonstrated, there are those who will literally watch the world burn in order to turn a profit.
Our greatest weapon against this lies in our solidarity, in believing that there is such a thing as society and that people should come before profit. This will be a hard-fought battle, history shows us it always is, but it also shows us we won’t have to fight alone.
Together we stand.
